Child Soldiers All Over the World

Children should not directly or indirectly participate in war. All continents around the world (except Antarctica) use at least one child soldier in their troops throughout their history. A 14-year-old child in a theater armed with medicine including automatic rifles, high-energy explosives, and drugs and other hazardous substances is actually grotesque and sounds immoral, but this is a countless occurrence in history is. And continue still.

Especially the particularly serious progress in the war of the past decade is using children as a brutal confrontation soldier. Child soldiers exist everywhere in the world and participate in most conflicts. However, this problem is particularly important in Africa where 9-year-old children in Africa participated in armed conflict. Most child soldiers are from 14 to 18 years old. Child soldiers are recruited by insurgent groups and government forces. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child urges parties to prevent children under the age of 15 from participating in hostilities. However, many think that this situation is too low, measures are taken to raise the minimum age to 18 years old. "The Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict" (143 Parties as of November 2011) raised the minimum age to 18

International Child Soldiers International recently announced the "Child's Soldier World Index" for public offering. This can be used to keep track of information such as minimum recruitment age and minimum age for subscription, hyperlinks that can be used to access online sites including past military. We are looking for historical information about children. The role of international actors is essential to protect children from recruitment. The Additional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Convention added in 1977 stipulates that the age of 15 is the minimum age to serve in the army. In 1989, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Article 38 states that "States Parties shall take all practical measures to ensure that those under the age of 15 do not participate directly in hostile actions".

As children continue to be exploited by armed groups all over the world, special mental health intervention for children soldiers is further needed. However, research dedicated specifically to the mental health of child soldiers in armed conflict is missing. Civilians' children are more accessible than children soldiers for many reasons. Brandon A. Kohrt (Emerald University, Atlanta) researchers began to identify mental health effects of children who were not forced to serve children soldiers and military service. The sample includes 141 former child soldiers and 141 children who have never been in prison in Nepal from March to April 2007. The ages, sexes, educational backgrounds and ethnicity of these children were consistent, and all participants experienced at least one type of trauma. Former child soldiers were aged 5 to 16 at the time of recruitment and the average age of the research participants was about 15.75 years old.